


The Shifting of the Seasons

by gowerstreet



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Happy Ending, How They Met, Lonely Mycroft, M/M, appalling tea, fraternal sympathy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-04
Updated: 2017-05-04
Packaged: 2018-10-28 01:29:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10820898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gowerstreet/pseuds/gowerstreet
Summary: A moment of crisis sparks a  turning point in Mycroft's life , in the shape of a soft-eyed, tea-bearing DI .





	The Shifting of the Seasons

**Author's Note:**

> I have discovered that is is possible to forget that you have written something... Hence this
> 
> Beta read at speed by the wondrous 221bjen

Mycroft’s glacial demeanour was merely a carapace. For decades, it had served him to pretend that his emotional winter was a permanent season. Better to seem stiff, cold and distant, than to risk the pain that closer interactions with the summer creatures who surrounded him.

But no winter lasted eternally. Ice ages ended. His was a gradual defrosting, after the original shock of solar warmth.

Mycroft sagged in the buckets they deigned to call chairs in the waiting area of St Thomas’ A&E. Another bloody overdose, caught in time by the grace of the surreptitious presence of the police raiding the crack house in which he had chosen to secrete himself. He had been barely  breathing and with the remnants of a heart rhythm by the time help arrived

They were working on him now, purging the poison from his veins once more and making him comfortable. At least one of them was. It was going to be a long night out here, but he refused to go home until Sherlock was transferred out of Resus and onto an observation ward. That could be some hours away yet, depending on his sodding progress.

He stared at the floor tiles, subconsciously noting the semi-random occurrences of the Pollockesque patterns on the institutional lino tiles. This floor had clearly been laid by two different individuals, going by the lack of uniformity. At least it gave him something to look at. People came and went; he took no notice of who passed until a pair of well-worn lace-ups and the legs of a supermarket suit paused three feet to the left of his chair.  Mycroft's eyes travelled upwards, expecting to encounter a white coat and the tired eyes of a junior doctor.

But not this time. The man in front of him wore a grey overcoat, splashed with mud and at least two other biological substances. One hand held a hot drink in a plastic vending cup, the other a thin black wallet. 

“Mr Holmes?” The voice was soft, dark and gentle.

Mycroft looked up, right into a pair of even softer, darker eyes, and wished he could allow himself to get lost in them. Instead he sat up straighter, ready to absorb the worst.

He flipped out his warrant card and offered him the cup. “DI Lestrade. The nursing team wanted you to have this. They led me to believe that it’s tea. Or at least a computer’s approximation of it.”

Mycroft took it from him with the kind of half-smile which could have been swiped from a Royal countenance. He sipped cautiously, then cradled the cup gingerly between his fingers. “Thank you.”

“Would you mind if I join you?”

__  
Oh, please do…  
  
There was a creak and a groan as the glacier round his heart showed the first signs of pressure. Lestrade hovered on the edge of his vision, waiting patiently for an answer. “Erm - By all means.” 

“Thanks. it’s been a while since I’ve had the chance for a breather. How’s your brother doing?”

Mycroft focused on the cup of alleged tea. “As well as can be expected. Medical intervention occurred before the point of no return, this time at least. Thank you.”

Lestrade smiled, and it seemed as though the sun had broken through the night sky. “Part of the job. I’m glad he’s getting another chance.”

The breath huffed out of Mycroft. “As am I, even if I seem to spend great chunks of my life attempting to save him from  ever greater calamities.”

“The price of being an elder sibling. I spent most of my twenties pulling my sister out of her own personal gin pool and hiding it from Da. It worked, eventually.”

“I will continue to hope that Sherlock is similarly successful.” He took a mechanical swig and swallowed quickly in order to hide the taste. At least it gave him something to do, instead of staring at Lestrade and wondering what he looked like under those clothes and out of that damned wedding ring.

 

Something electronic rattled, demanding attention. Both men patted their pockets. Lestrade reached into his and groaned. ”Damn. Break over.“ He pulled out his phone and read the incoming text.

“Look, here’s my card. Elder brothers need to someone to lean on occasionally.”

It was acknowledged with another half-smile. “Much appreciated, as was the approximation of tea.”

“Anytime. Shame we had to meet in such circumstances.“

Then he was gone, phone pressed to his ear.

Mycroft turned the card over over in his hand. A man of note, caught in the demands of a difficult and poorly rewarded job. He filed the card in his wallet, then downed the rest of his tea with a shudder. A serious-faced doctor was approaching. He binned the cup and stood, preparing himself. 

_ God, if you exist, let him live… _

\--

Two weeks later, a small parcel was waiting for Lestrade at the start of his shift.

“What’s this?”

Donovan, the new DC,  shrugged. “How the hell would I know, Guv? Arrived this morning. Don’t worry, It passed all its screenings.”

“Fair enough. Thanks. Better open it, then.”

She handed him the scissors. “You’ll need these.”

“Ta.”

The shrink-wrapped cardboard didn't stand a chance. Three neat packets of Fortnum & Mason teabags emerged, along with a single business card.

  

_ S now in rehab. All appears well.  _ _ Feel free to contact me whenever you are in need of fraternal commiseration.MEH _

  

Lestrade flipped the card, programmed the number into his phone and then tucked the card into his wallet.

Some things were worth keeping hold of.

\----

Two business-cards, tattered by a lifetime’s captivity in separate wallets, enjoyed a long retirement in a handmade frame, half way up the stairs of a sympathetically restored townhouse near Vauxhall. Visitors rarely spotted them, hidden as they were in plain sight. They commented on the Millais print, or the original Blake cartoon on the landing instead.

  
But the iceman and the soft-eyed sun who melted him often paused on the ninth step and were grateful for the chance meeting which granted them the opportunity to find the life they now shared.


End file.
